The process includes receiving individual products sequentially at a receiving position on transporting members continuously circulating wherein the products are conveyed by a buffer section to a discharge position. The transporting members are retained at the receiving position until a product has been received, thereby ensuring that each transporting member leaves the receiving position with a received product.
Processes of this type are necessary, for example, when forming multiple component printed products. In this arrangement, different individual or part-products are transferred in parallel operation by one feed conveyor to an apparatus for compiling the printed products to form final products comprising the individual or part-products.
In this arrangement, the apparatus for compiling the printed products comprises a plurality of receiving means which are driven in circulation to sequentially move past the various feed conveyors where they are each provided with individual or part-products. In this manner, a final product comprising a plurality of individual or part-products is formed in each receiving means or on each rest.
In the case of the process described, the situation may occur where the individual or part-products are not fed from the feed conveyors in an absolutely regular and continuous manner. In particular it is possible that, in the case of a feed conveyor configured as a clamp-type transporter, individual clamps do not, as a result of a brief malfunction, bear any individual or any part-product.
Ultimately, this leads to the situation where the individual or part-product to be fed by the relevant feed conveyor is missing in one of the final products. This problem exists in prior art processes.
To prevent this, known processes provide a buffer section positioned between the feed conveyors and the apparatus for forming the products. At the buffer section, the individual or part-products fed by the respective feed conveyor are temporarily retained until being discharged. The products are thus controlled such that incomplete final products are guided past all the buffer sections once again and individual or part-product are discharged only at that buffer section at which discharge did not take place during the first run, as a result of which, completion of the final product which was not yet complete after the first run is achieved.
An object of the invention consists of improving the above-mentioned processes and ensuring, in particular with the lowest possible degree of outlay and the greatest possible degree of certainty, that only complete final products are produced.